Marco Silva was not happy with what he saw in the first half at Craven Cottage, as goals from Gabriel Magalhães, Gabriel Martinelli and Martin Ødegaard before the break settled our fixture against Arsenal.
“Clearly Arsenal deserved the three points,” Silva said. “First half, we were on the pitch, but in some moments looked like we weren’t.
“Too soft, not brave enough, completely not aggressive off the ball, let them play in the way they wanted, and we didn’t disturb them as much as we should have done.
“We were soft for all the goals, we were soft in all the first half. First goal, how they scored, the second goal, how they scored, and even the third after the throw-in for us was completely our fault.
“It’s difficult to understand. Of course, we’re going to analyse and we have to understand, and for sure the players are going to understand, because they don’t have another solution, they are going to understand for sure.
“After last Monday night, we analysed and we were expecting something completely different. Unfortunately for us, first half was even worse than Monday against Brentford.”
Fulham were much improved after the restart, with only the crossbar and good saves from Aaron Ramsdale preventing us from reducing the deficit.
Asked what the message to his players was at half-time, Silva replied: “The first thing that I said was we have to wake up, because if you don’t wake up it will be even worse in the second half, because what we did first half is really clearly under our standards and what we should do.
“Second half was slightly different, even if we were already losing 3-0 – more threat in our attack, we created more chances, we were more brave, more aggressive in some moments. At least we expressed ourselves more on the pitch second half.”
Former Gunners winger Willian missed the contest, with Silva shedding some light on his absence post-match.
“Willian had a tough week,” he explained. “Last game he felt his hamstring a bit, but nothing really serious. We assessed him during the week, and the last two days he felt something in his back.
“He was supposed to start the game this afternoon but he felt pain in his back. We tried, he was with us until the last minute, but we decided he was not in a position to start.”
